Funeral home at forefront of industry

Daniel D. Jones founded his undertaking firm in 1876 and revolutionized the business by being the first in Northeast Pennsylvania to embalm a body. Before the Civil War, mourners viewed the deceased for a period of about 24 hours. During the Civil War, a process known as arterial embalming came into practice, preserving the body so it could be viewed for a period of three days or longer.

Mr. Jones' adoption of this practice was one of a series of "firsts" that continued to modernize his business.

Born in Plymouth in 1844, he was 10 years old when his family settled in the Providence section of Scranton. Like many boys of his generation, he worked as a slate picker at various coal breakers. Then he trained as a cabinetmaker.

In 1863, Mr. Jones enlisted in the Union Army and fought in the Civil War battles of Cold Harbor and Petersburg. After three years of service, he was honorably discharged and returned to Scranton, where he took a job in a furniture store operated by George Davis.

Ten years later, he opened a business of his own - a combination furniture shop and undertaking establishment - at Wayne Avenue and West Market Street. Some years later, the business moved to 1721 N. Main Ave., where it remained for a number of years.

David L. Jones joined his father in the business, and came to be regarded as one of the finest embalmers in the region and an expert at reconstructing bodies of men who were badly injured in mining accidents.

The younger Mr. Jones also inherited his father's cabinet-making skills, working with the T.M. Miller Casket Co. to design a casket that soon became the most popular of its type. He and John Jennings, a North Scranton funeral director, founded the Lackawanna County Funeral Association.

D.D. Jones & Son had the reputation of having the finest funeral equipment. In 1901, President William McKinley died after having been shot by an anarchist at the Buffalo Pan-American Exposition. His home state of Ohio was looking for an elaborate hearse suitable for carrying his body. The Joneses' firm offered a horse-drawn vehicle with hand-carved ornamentation and fine draperies and upholstery. The hearse was used in the president's funeral procession and then placed on view at the McKinley Memorial in Canton, Ohio.

That same year, D.D. Jones & Son opened the first funeral home in Scranton, at 33 N. Washington Ave., making it the first establishment

to offer to grieving loved ones an alternative to the practice of holding viewings at home.

Daniel Jones died in 1908, but his son continued to modernize the business. In 1912, he introduced the "Black Eagle," a 50-horsepower, four-cylinder vehicle - the first automobile to be used as a hearse in the area. Hundreds of people stopped in the streets to watch when it made its appearance. By the 1920s, mourners who turned to D.D. Jones & Son could ride in a fleet of Graham Paige automobiles, the first of its kind in the region.

In 1922, another generation was ready to enter the family business when Ronald Coston Jones, son of David L. Jones, became a licensed undertaker. Like his grandfather, the young Jones served in the Army. He was a night supervisor in an Army hospital in France during World War I.

The Jones family continued to run their business with the same eye toward modernization. They were the first funeral home in the area to use an amplifying system, which they installed in 1931. They were the first to use a pipe organ to provide music for services in their funeral home. And they were among the first to have a parking lot for the convenience of mourners.

In 1940, the National Selected Morticians invited them to become a member of the organization - an honor bestowed upon only one funeral home in a city and an honor befitting the firm that modernized the undertaking business.

CHERYL A. KASHUBA is a university instructor and author of "A Brief History of Scranton, Pennsylvania." Contact the writer: localhistory@ timesshamrock.com

We welcome user discussion on our site, under the following guidelines:

To comment you must first create a profile and sign-in with a verified DISQUS account or social network ID. Sign up here.

Comments in violation of the rules will be denied, and repeat violators will be banned. Please help police the community by flagging offensive comments for our moderators to review. By posting a comment, you agree to our full terms and conditions. Click here to read terms and conditions.